I've noticed that along with the matchmaking finding players from every corner of the world, and giving a terrible connection, the games are being found much much quicker. It's as if the matchmaking formula was adjusted to prioritize quickness in finding games over connection quality.

Maybe it's because people were complaining on this forum that they waited a very long time to be put in matches.

So they must have changed something to solve this problem and at the same time messed the system up.

That is one explanation, and probably one that's highly likely too... But then again this series has had it's issues with the matchmaking before, and at least in my experience the problem is pretty much the same.

I hooked up my PS3 yesterday and played some older titles just for fun, and got the same impression about the matchmaking and average connection quality that i've had before... I didn't bother with Cod4 and WaW since the last time i tried them both had very few players and most lobbies were modded.

First up MW2, immediately got into a lobby with other Finnish players in it while playing TDM without the DLC, always on a 4 bar or hosting and didn't get a single bullshit death. It's an old dying game with probably not that big of a player pool left (the game does not show how many people are playing anymore), but the matchmaking just seems to be the best it's ever been in this franchise. I played for a while, took a little break and then unfortunately only found lobbies with people using aim bots in them so i stopped playing.

I then popped in BO1, tried a few games of TDM without any DLC, overall there were 49k playing. I used the Locale-search option and was always on a 4 bar, but in every lobby that i got into i was up against French, Spanish, Italian and / or Middle Eastern players rocking a 2-3 bar connection with the ability to soak up bullets and kill me after eating at least twice the amount of shots that should've killed them. Otherwise the gameplay would've been good.

Next up MW3, connection seemed a bit better than in BO1 and i think the overall amount of players online was the same, but again i was matched against some of the 2 bar warriors from the same parts of the world. Some lobbies were better than others and it wasn't consistently bad like BO1 so the matchmaking patch they released for this game some time after BO2 had come out did improve it a bit, but it could be a lot better. I also played MW3 this morning and it was just as inconsistent, some lobbies i was struggling to win a gunfight and when i back out the host migration kicked in, so the host disadvantage is definitely still there.

I also tried some BO2 last night, again TDM with no DLC and there was 249k online overall, and didn't finish a single game. I tried 3 or maybe 4 different lobbies, and simply couldn't take anymore of the bullet sponging. I was always on a 4 bar and used the best-search criteria, but got a bunch of bullshit deaths against lagging players living in the same places mentioned before. Hit detection felt even worse than in BO1, but that's completely up to luck with the lobbies you manage to get into because other times that i've went back to older games both have been laggy as fuck but the original one has felt worse.

See the pattern here ? I'm not entirely sure, but i think there are some differences between the matchmaking in each of these titles, but results seem to be the same. Ghosts used to play much better and i hardly ever ended up in the same lobbies as these players from these areas that i mentioned before, but whatever they changed has effectively made the game play pretty almost as bad as some of the older titles.

Ohhhh, that's where they're hiding. I don't get matched up with Brits; I get matched up with Ali in Gaza or xMohammedzZzx in "Q8" LOL. Seriously I'll play at peak time for my time zone, and only half of the lobbies are "local", if I'm lucky.

Yep, it's been bad for a long time now, and just seems to get worse and worse. I also get the Middle Eastern players quite often, and constantly have to play against the French and Spanish which isn't exactly any better since most of them lag and sponge shots all game long.

I understand that i cannot get local matchmaking since i live here in Finland, but there is really no reason for me to be matched with these laggers either since i was able to find games and had very little issues with the connection when the PS4 launched and we only had 7k online at that time, but the matchmaking seemed much much better.

Yeah it sux...especially when you've put so much time into the game that you know what you're capable of when everything's working as it should, yet the outcome of most games comes down to fluctuating connection quality. I actually had a game of TDM on Prison Break last night where I went 42-2 (using streaks of course); next game - same lobby - I went 17-13 and I couldn't kill anyone that was actually facing me lol in that 42-2 game, the bullet registration was like it was back in January or February - flawless. In the 17-13 game, it looked like I had a 500ms ping!

Huh, I'm surprised at that. From what (admittedly little) I know of Finland, you guys are really modern and high tech? I'd be surprised if there weren't many PS4 users playing Ghosts there but then again, how would you even know? The matchmaking is broken so you probably hardly ever see Finnish lobbies anyway haha

You're absolutely right. The game played so well months ago...I think it was a patch in February or March that screwed everything up. One to "optimise matchmaking for Clan Wars"? Smh , good job IW

Huh, I'm surprised at that. From what (admittedly little) I know of Finland, you guys are really modern and high tech? I'd be surprised if there weren't many PS4 users playing Ghosts there but then again, how would you even know? The matchmaking is broken so you probably hardly ever see Finnish lobbies anyway haha

The country is as modern as any other western country, gaming in general is popular, and we have good internet infrastructure here also... But since there is only 5,4 million citizens here and when you put that into perspective with the amount of players online on Ghosts and also consider that the DLC and the different playlists cuts us all into even smaller groups, i cannot really expect to get local matchmaking.

Fortunately many of us have good enough connections to have a low ping to a server or player host in central Europe or in the UK for example, but that won't do you much good if you are matched with people playing on a poor connection or living too far away from the server.

This is a PSN issue. I moved recently to the xbox one and although the game is not perfect on there even with tiny player pools I mainly play Brits. I do get French and Germany lobbies but way less then I used to get on the playstation. Even when there were 400k on blops2 back in the day it would put me in French lobbies all night. No idea what the matchmaking is doing in the PSN. Hell I even get players from my City on xbox live.

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